Mountain of Affection
by HedgieX
Summary: A jumble of Kate/Caroline/Gillian. She's never had to call a colleague into her office and watch every muscle in their face slacken as she told them they were suspended before. Tossed in all directions between school and her needy mother, silently suffering girlfriend and ever-neglected kids, Caroline thinks she's hit rock bottom. And then Gillian is rushed into hospital.
1. I will weep a while longer

**How good was Tuesday?**

**I own nothing: both titles are taken from **_**Much Ado about Nothing**_** by Shakespeare. I'm hoping this will be multi-chaptered, although any updates will be erratic because of my work load at the moment; apologies in advance. I should be writing essays rather than fanfiction, but hey, it's a Friday night. If Last Tango is only on for six hours a year I may as well make the most of it.**

**MOUNTAIN OF AFFECTION**

**One: I will weep a while longer**

Several years ago, before Lawrence's dyslexia had been diagnosed, Caroline had spent many an unhappy night sitting on the end of her son's bed as he tried to explain to her how the words swam in front of him and turned into other words, how impossible it was for him to memorise spellings.

She couldn't imagine not being able to read, she'd contentedly whiled away years of her life with her head buried in a book, and it seemed that William had inherited her passion. It wasn't that she'd doubted Lawrence's effort in English, more that she'd accepted his strengths lay elsewhere, and that it was instinct for a child not to put as much effort into subjects they liked less.

"Miss Johnson thinks I'm lazy."

Caroline had reached across for his hand in the darkness, "Did she say that?"

"No. Nobody says stuff like that because they know you'd kill them."

She'd smiled to herself at that because she knew Lawrence was exaggerating, as he was prone to do, and yet it was the truth. She would kill for her children. She doubted that Celia felt such an intense protectiveness, but then she remembered her mother's fury the night Caroline's family had been torn apart by the discovery of John's affair.

"When we're reading in class she keeps choosing me, and then she just gives me this look when I make a mistake."

"Maybe that's just the way Miss Johnson looks at people."

"She smiles at Harry all the time."

Caroline had turned on his lamp and took a book from the pile on the bedside table. An encyclopaedia; going along with the assumption that he preferred science (she'd liked to think he got that from her) and maths, she'd thought these were the kinds of books he was most interested in. Now she flicked through and saw that it was predominantly images.

She thought back to when he was a toddler; his reading had never been as advanced as William's, but she'd never noticed a particular problem. Of course, she'd been dragged further and further into her career as Lawrence in particular had gone through his early years, left her sons to do their homework with John. Poor things. No mother in their right mind would leave John in charge of their child, but then Caroline hadn't been in her right mind. Maybe if she had, Lawrence wouldn't have been so frightened to tell her he was struggling.

"Go on," she said, putting the book on his knees.

"The giraffe is world's– the world's– tallest–"

Silence had fallen between them like a void she couldn't cross no matter how tightly she squeezed his hand.

"They all think I'm lazy, Mum," he'd said, and it had broken her heart to see the damp trails on his cheeks when he'd finally raised his head.

Since then, Caroline had thought a lot about how he saw the world, and only now, sitting at her office desk gazing at the first of seventy-six unread emails she needed to trawl through in the next half hour, did she finally think she knew what it was like for him to stare at a page in a book. The words were fuzzy, moving around when she tried to bring them into focus, their meanings missing even when she did manage to read them. Something about free school meals.

This morning she'd suspended a colleague, someone she'd worked with for almost a decade. It made the memories of her conversations with Lawrence more painful because she'd defended Loretta Johnson to him, promised him her ignorance was to blame for her lack of empathy when she continued to make him read in class. She'd told herself she would kill for her children and she couldn't even make sure Lawrence wasn't miserable in his English lessons.

She'd had to deal with disciplinary issues in her time as headmistress – they were never very nice things, of course – but she'd never suspended someone outright. Never had to call someone into her office and watch every muscle in their face slacken as she asked them not to return to the premises until further notice.

The circumstances were as fuzzy as the words in front of her. Something had happened in the playground last night between Loretta and a child, leaving the child with pink strips across his cheek where her fingers had made impact. Plenty of students claimed to have witnessed it, and a couple of parents as well (which was just what she needed) but each one had flung their own embellishments into the story so that she was left questioning whether the incident had happened at the school or on Mars. Questioning who the hell she could trust.

"Your name is mud in the staff room," Kate announced cheerfully before she'd fully emerged through Caroline's office door.

"Morning, Kate."

"What've you done?"

"Shagged Beverley," Caroline deadpanned, continuing to stare at her emails until she'd given Kate enough time to digest this. She raised her eyes over the top of the monitor and met her girlfriend's gaze. "I'm kidding."

"You must have done something. I'm always the last to know; they won't tell me because they think I'd scurry in here and bitch about them."

"Well, you would."

Kate sat down opposite her unconcernedly, and Caroline returned to her emails and clicked on the next one up. She wanted to pretend to read it but her gaze remained in the same position for so long trying to decipher a word that her eyes swelled with frustrated tears.

"Stupid," she muttered.

"What's wrong? Is it something with the boys?"

"No, no, they're fine. It's– last night Loretta Johnson hit a year eight student, and this morning I had to suspend her."

"God."

"I've worked with her for ten, nearly eleven years, and it's just so unexpected. If someone had asked me to list my colleagues in order of who I thought most likely to hit someone, she would have – not that I think any of you likely to hit someone," she tried to smile, then got lost slightly trying to continue her sentence. She shook her head. "It's just shaken me a bit, that's all."

"Caroline," Kate said softly, reaching a hand across the desk and pressing her fingers over Caroline's where they rested on the computer mouse.

Kate had such a soft voice, she was so good at saying what Caroline needed her to say (and quite often that was just 'Caroline', so she knew that she wasn't alone), putting Caroline's feelings before her own. She was too good at it. It was part of how busy Caroline was that she sometimes got caught up in her own worries and forgot everyone else had their own; she needed Kate to ground her, remind her gently that there were more important things. She thought that she really ought to let Kate lean on her for a change, but she barely had the energy to prop herself up, let alone somebody else as well. One of Caroline's greatest faults – she blamed Celia for this – was subconsciously holding back from trusting anyone, even those who adored her.

There was a firm knock on the door, three taps in quick succession. "Gavin's here, Caroline. Do you want me to show him through to the conference room?"

"No, I'd better speak to him alone first, before we open up the floor to all and sundry telling us what they think we should do."

"Right you are. I'll get some coffees made."

"Thank you." Caroline was fond of her secretary, discreet and unflappable as she was. Caroline could be herself around her. If any other person had walked into the room Kate would have snatched her hand away from her girlfriend's, but not Beverley.

"It's like you're chairing a COBRA meeting."

Caroline wrinkled her nose and closed the window displaying her emails on the screen, "If only it was that exciting."

"I should go. I hope everything goes alright."

"I'll let you know. And I'll meet you in the organ loft at lunch," Caroline stood up and moved around the desk to give Kate a kiss, "Oh, doesn't that sound romantic?"

Caroline watched a plastic smile emerge on Gavin's face as he and Kate passed each other in the doorway. She gave him an equally plastic smile as they shook hands and exchanged greetings, and he took the seat opposite her desk. There was barely a point in pretending; they both knew it was going to be a thoroughly unpleasant meeting.

"It's a shame we–"

Her phone spun on the desk, screamed for attention with its bright screen and fluttering letters. _Mum._ One day she'd get round to asking Lawrence how she could make the vibrations less ferocious. "Sorry, I need to get this. Mum, I'm in a meeting, can I–"

"Caroline," Alan whispered, and she knew that no, she couldn't call back later, there might not be a later. Why did they all insist on postponing things until it was too late?

"Is it my mum?"

"No." His voice was shaking. "It's Gillian."

XxXxX


	2. Know love's grief by his complexion

**It amused me slightly when I read back over the first chapter and realised I'd made a slight faux pas in that Caroline, head of a private school, is reading an email about free school meals. Artistic licence *cough cough***

**In any case, thank you to anyone who reviewed or followed, it genuinely makes my day a lot of the time. I hope you enjoy this chapter x**

**MOUNTAIN OF AFFECTION**

**Two: Know love's grief by his complexion**

"Gillian?"

"Robbie and Raff went back t' farm and– they went with her, in t' ambulance." Even though the panic thrust itself through in every syllable, Alan didn't lose his accent. "We're on the way t' hospital now, me and Celia."

"What happened?"

"We're not really sure."

"Did she collapse or something?"

"No, she–"

Caroline waited, but in the silence he seemed to accuse her, like he'd explained everything and was awaiting her reply. Gavin gave a nod as she mouthed 'sorry', evidently impatient but uncertain as to whether impatience was inappropriate. Even in the heavy silence Caroline was struggling to focus on Gillian; everything in her was focused on Loretta Johnson and what she'd done. Said goodbye to her career and potentially thrown the school to the wolves. You didn't do that unless you felt like there was nothing left, or unless you were no longer in control.

"Well, is there anything I can do?" she asked.

"Won't you come to the hospital?"

"I'm sorry, Alan, I'm actually in the middle of a meeting at the moment. I can probably drive over when it's finished if–

"I know," his voice crackled and he broke off momentarily, "I know you and our Gillian haven't been on the best of terms lately."

Well, Alan hadn't been on the best of terms with her either, had he? They'd barely seen each other since he'd found out about John, Celia had told her the other night, and Caroline knew how inseparable father and daughter were normally. It brought tears to her own eyes to recall Gillian weeping at Alan's bedside in the first hours after his heart attack. Caroline spent most of her waking hours frustrated with her mother, but she couldn't go a day without speaking to her.

"Well, I've been busy with work, and Gillian's had a lot to do on–"

"You know about Eddie, don't you?"

It was one thing to discuss when she'd be home with her mother while Gavin was in earshot, but she didn't feel comfortable revealing deeper things, things like her future sister-in-law's husband's death.

"Yes," she said.

"You know how they– how Gillian found–"

She could hear Celia in the background. "It's not good for you to get so worked up. She's probably just had a fall."

"They– Robbie and Raff, they found her in the barn."

Caroline had been considering getting up and concluding the call in Beverley's office away from Gavin, but now she was glad she'd stayed still because she thought she'd have fallen down wherever she was when she heard those words.

"Do you think you could manage without me?"

"It's not really–" Gavin stopped, seeming to see the shift in her eyes from the phone call being the inconvenience to everything else in the world being the inconvenience, because now she had to be with someone and nothing else mattered. "We can probably postpone it a couple of hours. We'll get on dealing with some other matters until you're back."

She nodded slowly. "Alan. I'll be at the hospital as soon as I can be. Ring me if there's any news. Anything."

XxXxX

She rang Kate while she was driving. She knew she shouldn't, knew that getting herself killed because she wasn't concentrating on the roads wouldn't help anyone, but she found herself desperate to hear that gentle voice. Normally, when something was wrong, she'd ring Gillian; it was the way things worked, they traded problems, chattered about their parents to fill in the silences when they needed something trivial to cover the silence while they were lost in their own thoughts. She hadn't spoken to Gillian in almost three weeks now.

"Thought you had an über-important meeting?"

"Are you teaching?"

"Would I have answered if I was?"

Caroline bit down hard on her lip as she hit the brake in order to stop in time at a set of traffic lights. Her reaction times were shot, and her lip was bleeding. Gillian and Loretta were bouncing around her head, rubbing against one another; two women she thought she understood up until yesterday, and now she just didn't know any more. If someone had asked her what colour an orange was she wasn't sure she'd have known the answer, her head was pounding so hard.

"I'm not teaching, no," Kate said, "What's happening with Loretta? You know, it's not your fault, you couldn't have known she'd do that."

"I know," Caroline whispered.

"Do you want me to come up to your office?"

The driver behind her held his hand down on the horn helpfully when she didn't respond to the green light. He even more helpfully stuck two fingers up as he overtook her.

"I'm not there."

"Why, where are you? Are you alright?"

"I'm driving over to Halifax."

"What happened to the über-important meeting?" Kate asked, with more than a trace of disappointment in her tone, "What happened to meeting me in the organ loft at lunch?"

"Well, it's good to know you're still self-centred."

She threw her phone down in the foot well of the passenger seat. It was becoming something of an unhealthy habit, throwing things when she was driving, she really shouldn't. Particularly when it hurt Kate; this wasn't Kate's fault. She drove one-handed alone the road, bending low over the wheel as she scrabbled with her fingers in the foot well for the phone. Someone else hit their horn.

"I need to apologise to her," she said to no-one in particular.

Several horns were held down at once, their honking harsh against the softness of the Yorkshire countryside, and she raised her hand just fast enough to grasp the wheel and swerve away from the edge of the road. She heard the air between the car and the hedgerow whistle as she whipped alongside it, she heard how close she was to flying off the edge of the road and into nothingness. Another habit, not always unintentional.

She saw her boys' faces, saw them dressed in black suits. Lawrence's sleeves were a little too long and his tears dribbled onto them as he reached up to wipe his face. Celia's pulled them in towards her, one on either side, pressed her face into William's side.

"Stop it," she yelled, "Stop it."

She pulled up at the side of the road and brought her knees up to her chin and sat there, hugging herself in the drivers' seat, watching the drivers' heads turn inquisitively as they passed her car. It was a stupid place to park, if someone went into the side of her she'd probably go off the cliff anyway. She wondered if she really cared any more, and saw William and Lawrence again, like that was her punishment for such thoughts. And she called Kate self-centred.

She found her phone and dialled Kate's number. "Sorry. I'm sorry."

"Beverley says it's a family emergency, is it Alan?"

"No. No, it's Gillian."

"Gillian? What happened, did she have an accident or something?"

"I don't know. Alan said– he said they thought–"

"Hey," Kate whispered, "Hey, don't."

Whilst they sat in silence it started to rain. The droplets hammered on the roof of Caroline's far and she thought, rather than her sons having to say goodbye to her mother, it might turn out to be Raff wearing the oversized suit. They hadn't ever discussed it but Caroline thought that Gillian would probably want lots of flowers at her funeral, and everyone would have to wear brightly coloured ties or high heels. Never one for misery, Gillian. They'd probably have the wake at the farm, looking out on Gillian's battered red tractor and her beloved sheep.

"Jesus, _stop it_."

"Stop what? Where are you, Caroline? Are you still driving?"

"No. I've stopped."

"I don't understand. Is Gillian going to be okay?"

Caroline got out of the car and moved round so that she was on the inside, leaning against the passenger door and looking out at the sky's merging into the horizon. Gillian would have thought this was so beautiful; she always was– no, she still was one for falling in love with the beauty of places, for giving thanks when something took her breath away. Caroline would bring her here and they would stand together in the drizzle and laugh.

"Yes."

XxXxX


	3. A star danced

**MOUNTAIN OF AFFECTION**

**Three: A star danced  
**

"Raff," Caroline said when she saw him, sitting there in the café by himself, making patterns with a fork in the bowl of soup set in front of him.

She'd always thought those old friends of her mother's were strange, holding out their arms enthusiastically to her when she was brought downstairs as a child to be shown off, and yet now Caroline did exactly that. She held him tight and smelled Gillian on him, the perfume of the outdoors, of sheep and engine oil and kindness.

"Caroline," he said, "I think I might have–"

She followed his gaze from his fork to the orange smudge on the front of her cream jacket. "It doesn't matter. I've had worse on my jacket."

"So's my mum. Sheep poo is impossible to get off."

They both laughed. Raff stood up and hugged her properly; he was nearly her height despite her heeled boots, and warm from the collective anxious heat of the relatives gathered in this room, trying to force some food down their throats while they waited for news.

"How is she, your mum?"

"Don't know. Robbie and Celia've gone for a walk outside, Robbie was a bit–" Raff shrugged, "Grandad's talking to the doctor at the moment."

"Do you know what happened?"

He shook his head. "We've not been allowed to see her yet."

"Alan said you'd found her. You and Robbie."

Raff sat down again. He drew a heart in his soup as Caroline sat down opposite him. "I went to tell her we were back from the shops and she– she was so covered in blood you couldn't tell where it w' from. We sat with her when we were waiting for t'ambulance."

"That must have been horrible."

"The paramedics said it was good we found her when we did. She might have been– you know. She squeezed my hand when I w' sat with her, she knew I was there."

Caroline reached across and took the hand he wasn't holding the fork in. They both looked down at the centre of the table, where their fingers were linked together, because eye contact was one step too painful. She traced a heart on his palm like it was the surface of his soup, and she felt him twitch, heard him sigh with the release of the effort it had taken to hold in his tears all this time. She was glad he could cry in front of her. She always felt like she didn't have that at school; perhaps they respected her, but none of the students really trusted her, did they?

"She'll be alright, your mum. She's a tough cookie."

He sniffled, "Celia said that."

"There you go, then."

"Are you supposed to be at work or something?"

"Yeah," she said softly, letting go of his hand, "But family's more important."

She was starving, she hadn't eaten anything for breakfast. She'd been planning on having lunch with Kate, up in the organ loft, she'd even made some cucumber sandwiches this morning. She'd left them in Beverley's mini fridge, actually; hopefully she'd find them and give them to Kate, although that was small solace for the way Caroline had behaved on the phone earlier.

She gestured to the untouched bread roll on the plate beneath Raff's soup bowl and he pushed it towards her with a misted smile. He looked far more grown-up that he'd ever seemed before, like he'd had to gain a couple of years' maturity in a mere couple of hours. She didn't want her boys ever to lose their childhood like that. It was too short already.

"Mum will be really glad you're here. Grandad and Robbie will just be fussing, so she'll be glad there's someone normal."

"I'm glad you think I'm normal. No-one else seems to."

"Not normal in a boring way," he clarified quickly, "You must be a cool head teacher. Ours 'as worn the same suit every day since I started goin' t' that school, and all you can smell when you walk past 'im is salt and vinegar."

"Oh, that's lovely."

Raff smiled. It was nice to see the childish glimmer in his eyes, behind the fear of what was happening with his mother.

"How's Kate?"

"How's Kate?" she repeated his question back, considering her answer. With anyone else, she would have presumed this question was just something the speaker had concocted to fill a potentially uncomfortable silence, but with Raff she believed he was genuinely interested. The only other person who'd seemed truly unruffled by the fact that Caroline was seeing another woman was Gillian, of course, so it made sense that Raff was open-minded too. "Not too bad."

"You had an argument or somethin'?"

"No, it's just a bit weird, you know?" She felt like he did know. She tore another chunk from the bread bun and dunked it in the lukewarm soup. "Being married for so many years, and then sort of having to start all over again."

"It's like my mum and Robbie. She used to see Robbie before she met my dad."

"Really? Is that how they met?"

"Yeah. Bit weird an' all." Raff's eyes swelled with new tears. "You know about my mum finding my dad in the barn, don't you? I never knew, you know, not for years. I know what grandad and Robbie think about Mum being in the barn, I know they think she– she–"

"Oh, Raff," she murmured, swallowing the last of the bread and reaching for his hand again. She didn't know what else there was she could do. "Your mum's not like that. I'm sure it was just an accident, that's all. When there's been an accident people tend to think the worst, and it turns out that they were being a bit daft, thinking those things."

"But what if she did– try to–"

"If she did, she'll get the help she needs. But she didn't, she wouldn't. You mean too much to her. She was saying the last time I talked to her how proud she was of you, how she couldn't wait to see you get married because she knew you'd be a perfect husband."

"You haven't spoken to her in ages."

"No," she said quietly, "I know. I'm sorry."

He bent his head to look at the table top. "She was lying face-down in the barn, so I couldn't see 'er face. They said on t' phone not to move her. There was blood all ov'r the straw, I don't know where it was coming from, I don't know–"

"_Raff_."

She pushed back her chair and moved to his side, pulling him towards her. With him sitting and her standing, his face was just above her waist height. He sniffed again and again into her stomach, trying to control himself, his throat bulging as he swallowed his tears.

"Raff, she's going to be fine."

Sometimes, when you say something often enough, if you wholly believe in what you are hoping for and think of nothing else, these things turn out to be the truth.

XxXxX


	4. I know you of old

**MOUNTAIN OF AFFECTION**

**Chapter four: I know you of old**

Caroline had to hold Raff close to her for a long time before she finally sensed that his sobs were slowing. He moved his head from her stomach, and she sat back down opposite him and gave the woman at the table next to them a small smile in response to her concerned glance. Everyone here was in the same boat, whiling away the minutes, lost in a parallel world where the roads and the buildings and the people outside didn't really matter until you knew whether your loved one had pulled through.

The woman was maybe in her late sixties, a few years younger than Celia, and was turning a sugar cube over and over in her fingers. Her face was white, splodged with pink, like a toddler's canvas after an arts and crafts event. It was Celia sitting here not so long ago, wondering why she had been given happiness at such a late stage only for it to be torn away from her before she'd enough time with Alan. Although of course there never would be enough time, really.

And Gillian had been sitting here with Caroline, telling her about her night with John. The thought of the worry in Gillian's eyes as she'd attempted to gauge just how much she'd hurt someone she cared about made Caroline want to cry. She'd tried to do the right thing by admitting to it, just a drunken accident involving two people who were dealing with a lot at the time, but of course Caroline couldn't let it go. She took it as a personal betrayal and that led to Gillian shutting herself off and falling out with her father, Celia, everyone that mattered. And that led to this.

"Do you think they'll let me see Mum yet?"

Caroline waited discreetly outside the men's toilets whilst Raff spruced himself up, then managed to find out from one of the receptionists in the hospital entrance where Gillian was. Considering where they worked and what the people they interacted with were dealing with, they were particularly unhelpful. At school Caroline was in control, she only had to stand in the doorway of a classroom or step into a corridor and a hush would fall over the students. She found it a little bit disconcerting to be somewhere like this, where she had no authority whatsoever.

Alan and Celia were sitting a little way into the opening of the ward, her hand on his knee as they talked (it gave Caroline another pang of something like regret when she saw that, Celia had never been that way with Caroline's dad, never remotely in love); Alan jumped up when he noticed Raff.

"Robbie's in wi' her at the moment, lad. The doctor reckons she's doin' alright, she lost a lot o' blood but she's conscious and everythin' now."

"Is she– was she–"

"Raff was a bit concerned about what happened," Caroline put in softly, hoping either Alan or her mother would understand the inference, "In the barn."

"Well, it's a mystery," Alan said. His face fell slightly, but not enough to merit his daughter having tried to kill herself, Caroline noted with relief. "The wounds are mainly on 'er face, the doctor thinks she were attacked by a dog. She doesn't seem t' remember much. Robbie says once he's sat with 'er a bit he'll go down t' farm and 'ave a look."

"Can we see her?"

Alan's face fell a little bit more. "You can, Raff. I'm sure she'll be really pleased t' see you. But Caroline–"

She'd always liked the way he said her name, softly, with the broadness of his accent coming through on the third syllable.

"Gillian doesn't want to see you," Celia told her, to spare her new husband the discomfort, "Alan said you were here and she got quite upset."

She'd always hated the way her mother spoke when she was explaining something negative, in a flat tone which rarely revealed anything of her emotions, so she couldn't tell if she was disappointed or frustrated or plain sad.

"But I–"

"But it was just petty arguing," Raff protested, turning to Caroline, "She doesn't really mean it, she's just– she will want to see you. You want to see 'er, don't you?"

"Of course I do," Caroline said, "But she's probably right, she's got enough people here to see her anyway. I don't want to get in the way."

"But you're not, you've b–"

"No, you need to respect what your mum wants. You're not supposed to do anything to overexcite people when they're in hospital. You've seen them say that on Casualty?"

He smiled weakly.

"Raff, lad," Alan reached out and patted him on the arm, "Caroline'll see your mum tomorrow. Come on, let's me and you go and see her now."

Raff gave Caroline another glance, like his loyalty to his mother and his conviction in Caroline were conflicting, and then he allowed Alan to lead him away up the ward. A nurse said something to Raff and he gave another half-hearted smile before he was swallowed up by the flimsy curtain drawn around Gillian's bed.

Celia gestured to the seat beside her; Caroline shook her head. "I really should get back to work. The governors are already tearing their hair out waiting for me. I only came because I thought–"

She sat down after all, stared down the ward to avoid eye contact; she didn't know why she was so opposed to crying in front of her mother. She'd done it enough times when she was younger, even up until not very long ago, cried over sleepless nights with the boys and then over John's nights away from the house.

She remembered suddenly sitting on the floor of the kitchen in her childhood home with Celia, a mixing bowl between them. She must have been five or six. She'd clasped a wooden spoon, which could only have been the same size as the one in her kitchen now, but at that moment had seemed immense. It had taken both hands (and assistance from Celia) to stir the mixture, and then the spoon had slipped from her hands and flown across the kitchen floor, splattering the cold tiles with uncooked cake. She'd thought her mum would be angry, but Celia had only pulled her daughter up onto her knee and wiped her sticky fingers with a tea-towel, and then kissed the top of her head tenderly. She was back to her usual officious, impassive self by dinner, bickering with Caroline's father, but at that moment Caroline had thought she'd finally put her finger on what love was. She'd made a point of making cakes with her sons at weekends, no matter how busy she was, because of this memory, because of her mother's spontaneous warm lips on her hair.

"Gillian's just emotional, love. Raff's right, of course she'll want to see you. Just maybe not today."

"Have you seen her?"

"No, I was outside dealing with Robbie." She said it like she'd been berating him for stealing from the hospital shop. "I expect Alan will want to stay with her tonight, so I'll talk to her and see if it's anything in particular that you've done, but I doubt it. Are you going to be alright to drive back to Harrogate?"

"I'll be fine. Ring me later."

Celia kissed her daughter's cheek, and Caroline shivered. She'd been wearing a little checked purple dress on that day in the kitchen, with lilac tights and her hair pulled back in purple ribbons. "I'll give her your love," Celia said, with a trace of sarcasm.

XxXxX

**I'd really appreciate you leaving a review if you're enjoying this story, even if you've only got time to write a couple of lines.**


	5. That I had been writ down an ass

**The Christmas Eve episode was just beautiful. Don't think I can wait another year for the new series. Here's some Caroline/Kate fluff (mingled with angst) for those who love them.**

**MOUNTAIN OF AFFECTION**

**Five: That I had been writ down an ass**

Caroline found Kate at the foot of the steps outside the hospital.

"I've been trying to ring you."

"Sorry." She hugged her briefly, partly because she was still hyperaware of the attention their relationship attracted, and partly because she didn't have the energy for anything romantic or tender. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought you might need some support. I didn't expect you to be coming out so soon, though. How's Gillian?"

"Not really sure." Caroline led the way to her car and Kate clambered into the passenger seat. Funny, her feet rested in the very place Caroline had thrown her phone earlier today. "It's not as bad as we thought. They think she was attacked by a dog or something, although God knows how."

"Sounds nasty."

"Mm. I wouldn't know, she said she didn't want to see me."

"After you'd left your meeting for her?"

Caroline shrugged. She still had soup on her coat. She shuffled further down in the seat and rested her head on the headrest, turning slightly sideways to face Kate. "How's things at school?"

"Beverley seemed to be just about keeping a lid on things."

"Loretta's coming in at three. Obviously I expected to have had a lot longer to discuss it with Gavin, so I'm not sure how that's going to work. I really need to get back to work now. Did you bring your car?"

Kate nodded.

"Shall I just see you there?"

"Are you sure you're alright to drive?"

"You sound like my mother." She'd meant it as a joke, but it came out snappy and discourteous. She licked her fingers and rubbed at the soup stain without any expectation of it coming off. "Sorry, I'm just– sorry. Thank you for coming."

"You've got a lot on at the moment, haven't you?"

"Mm," she said, "Sort of."

Kate reached across and untucked a strand of hair from behind her girlfriend's ear, then ran it between her fingers like she was curling it around a pair of scissors. Caroline wondered if the lady in the café had found out if her husband (slight presumption there, but life was filled with presumptions, and with fleeting exchanges with strangers whose lives were upside-down too) would live yet.

"Caroline." Her voice was sing-song with concern and Caroline wondered vaguely if she would burst into a chorus of something. She had such a lovely voice, talented in vocals just as she was talented with the piano and the organ and the flute, and yet she very rarely displayed any of these talents.

"Will you do a concert? Will you do– you can get some of the kids to play things, and then you can– you can play yourself as well."

"If you want," Kate whispered.

"I do want. The Queen of Sheba for my mother. That moonlight– the one by Beethoven. One of my roommates at Oxford used to play that all the _blinking_ time."

"Moonlight Sonata. Very grand."

"It would sound lovely in the chapel." Caroline wiped her cheeks with her coat sleeve. It was already wrecked; she might as well wreck it and then some. "You could play anything and it would– it would sound lovely."

"Three Blind Mice?" Kate suggested.

They both giggled. She'd once tried to teach Caroline to play a couple of nursery rhymes, and it had gone disastrously. As is often the case, Caroline's giggle led quickly on to more tears. She felt naked, crying in front of Kate. She must have looked like an imbecile; she was thirty-six and still having temper tantrums.

"Sorry."

"What've you got to be sorry for?"

"I'm a–" she stopped short, unsure of what she was. There probably wasn't a word. "You're lovely, like your music. You're too lovely."

Kate smiled her lovely smile. Caroline watched a huddle of paramedics and nurses manoeuvre a stretcher from the back of an ambulance and run alongside it as it was wheeled into the hospital. From here the person was just a blur of silver foil and fluorescent headrests. There didn't look to be any relatives with them; maybe they were following in a car, or maybe there weren't any. She wondered who they were, what was wrong with them. Maybe a heart attack (more flashbacks to Gillian's sobs as she'd cradled Alan's hand in the hospital wing; Caroline's heart beat faster with the image) or a fall on stairs. A second ambulance pulled up behind the second, on a slight angle so that Caroline could glimpse the inside. A paramedic bearing down over the stretcher, hands locked together, pounding the person's chest. More doctors gathering round with bags and wires.

"I don't mind driving you back to school, you know? I could always drive you back here tomorrow to pick your car up."

Normally, Caroline wouldn't have considered it, because it was a faff, and because Kate had already done enough. And (although it was a shameful flaw, she admitted to this) she didn't like loss of control. She made a terrible passenger because she couldn't quite switch off from driving; William refused to take her anywhere even now he'd passed his test because the way she sat forward and muttered things at other drivers made him nervous.

"Wouldn't you mind?"

"Of course not. It would give us a chance to talk. Not about– well, we don't have to talk about– well, about us, if you don't want. We could talk about what we're going to have for tea, if you'd prefer."

Caroline smiled and leaned across to brush her lips against Kate's cheek. "You're lovely."

As she turned back the second ambulance caught her eye again. The collective deflation of the staff gathered around, the dejected shake of the head from the paramedic inside the ambulance. What did that feel like? When Caroline failed it was because a parent was a little disgruntled about their child's grade, it was a teacher hitting a student. When a doctor failed, lives were lost. Of course, failure implied that they'd done something wrong, that they were at fault, and God, they weren't. How must that man feel, brushing his hand over a white face to close lifeless eyes? Someone he had never known and never would know balanced precariously on the line between life and death, slipping away. The intimacy of stranger's lips against stranger's lips.

Kate leant across the handbrake and held Caroline's head to her chest like she was protecting a child from a sex scene in a film. The thought that Kate would be a fabulous mother only made Caroline cry harder.

"I don't think you're in any fit state to be driving, whatever you say to the contrary," Kate whispered, pressing her lips to Caroline's ear to make herself audible over the sirens in the distance. Maybe more people dying. "I think I should get you back to school now. But if you aren't up to this meeting about Loretta, you don't need to go."

"Gavin will kill me."

"Bugger Gavin."

"Aren't you supposed to be teaching at the moment?"

"Would I be here if I was?" Kate asked, but the mischievous glimmer in her eyes as Caroline raised her head said something different.

"After the meeting, we really will meet– we'll meet in the organ loft. I made cucumber sandwiches this morning. Lawrence wrapped the little cupcakes in– in cling film, and I put the strawberries in the cool bag. I thought we could–"

"Oh, wow," Kate's genuine happiness made Caroline faintly happy, "You're perfect."

"This is becoming a bit of a habit."

"What, me calling you perfect?"

Caroline smiled. "I mean me crying. On my office floor, in my car. I don't know about perfect; I'm a little bit pathetic."

"I would think you were perfect if you dyed your hair lilac and wore brown boots with black trousers," Kate murmured, "If you had a different lover in a different hotel every evening. You don't, do you?"

"No, I don't."

"If you had no qualifications at all, worked in a chip shop and only had a shower every once in a blue moon. If you watched daft American action movies."

"Don't let Gillian hear that last one. I think– I think she's a fan."

"It's going to be okay," Kate murmured, "Everything is going to be okay."

XxXxX


End file.
